PACIFIC NAVAL DEFENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18406, 23 May 1923, Page 9

PACIFIC NAVAL DEFENCE.

DISCUSSION IN AUSTRALIA.

LOCAL NAVY ADVOCATED. DOMINION'S CO-OPERATION. By Telegraph— Association— (Received 8.5 p.m.) A. and X.Z. SYDNEY. May 22. Naval circles in Melbourne consider that the suggested Australian and New Zealand Navy is quite feasible from a practical point of view, should the Governments concerned approve, but a definite amalgamation of the Australian and New Zealand units is beyond the jurisdiction of naval experts except in an advisory capacity. It is pointed out that Australia's position as regards a selfmaintained fleet is much ahead of New Zealand's, and the question of levelling the positions is an important consideration. The Sydney Morning Herald, in a leader, while strongly supporting Singapore as against the suggested Sydney naval base, says it is Australia's duty to build a naval base for its own navy. Urging the need for maintaining a local navy, the article says: "Submarines alone cannot defend Australia or any island. The people are dependent upon maritime trade; such a defence would only invite a hostile fleet into our waters. The value of the present Australian fleet is that in a crisis a fleet of four cruisers could provide . a convoy for merchant shipping on the Australian coast or across the Tasman Sea. A fixed local navy policy, with an arrangement between the British and Australian Governments for the interchange of ships for foreign service, is a paramount duty, arid the only clear way out of the present local difficulty." , Mr. W. M. Hughes, in a special article in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, dealing with the question of respective merits of Singapore and Sydney for a naval base, after declaring that there ' must be a scheme of Empire defence in order to defend Australia, as Australia cannot defend herself and there is no one upon whom sho can rely except Britain, points out that Singapore was chosen after most careful consideration by naval experts, including Viscount Jellicoe and Earl Beatty, supported by the naval advisers of the Commonwealth. " These men,", he continues, say that the best place to defend Australia and New Zealand and the rest of the Pacific is Singapore. It seems to me that settles the question. What is will cost is for Australia • and the other Dominions to say at the next Imperial Conference or elsewhere."